


Slushie Facial

by orphan_account



Category: Glee
Genre: Bullied Kurt Hummel, Bullying, Coming Out, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Homophobic Language, M/M, Protectiveness
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2020-07-31 20:58:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20121565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kurt is annoyed but not surprised when he receives yet another slushie facial from yet another homophobic neanderthal. Sam is new to the school and unused to such blatant displays of hatred. His indignant feelings and inability to let things go lead to an undeniable connection.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are always appreciated, even if you hated it.

Kurt made his way down the hall towards his locker, weaving through a maze of barely sentient Neanderthals. He just had to put his books into his locker and make it to the choir room and he’d be safe for the day. His locker was in sight, so he just kept pushing forward.

Suddenly an eerie hush fell over the jungle. Excuse him, hallway. He knew exactly what this meant. He ignored the feeling of anticipation and tried to push through to his locker while there was still time.

Unfortunately, when the beasts had locked in on their prey, there was no stopping them until they’d had their way. Even more unfortunately for Kurt, it just so happened that he was the prey in this instance.

Strong hands shoved him out and away from his locker, spinning him roughly to face the lead two Neanderthals. They held their weapon of choice, slushies, aloft, grinning stupidly down at him.

Kurt gulped, looking around hopefully for a break in the crowd through which he could bolt. Not seeing an escape route, he turned back to face his opponents, resolved to suffer through. After all, he brought a change of clothes for instances such as this, and while he wouldn’t enjoy it, the fastest way out was through.

“Hey there, fag,” a Neanderthal said, smirking, impressing Kurt both with his originality and with his newfound ability to string a sentence together.

“Do you know what happens to faggy little gleeks like you?” He implored, apparently needing Kurt’s acknowledgment in order to just get on with throwing the freaking slushie.

“A free slushie facial, I assume?” Kurt responded snarkily.

“No,” the Neanderthal responded, seemingly dumbfounded at the thought that Kurt believed him to be giving out free facials to random faggy gleeks in the hallway, “No! We’re going to throw these at you!”

Kurt couldn’t resist an eye roll at the sheer stupidity before responding “Ooh, that must be a new technique, I hadn’t heard of it bef-“

He was cut off by the feeling of cold liquid slapping him suddenly in the face. He felt the stinging of the corn syrup in his eyes and squeezed them tightly shut, giving his arms a solid shake to clear them of liquid. He allowed himself exactly two seconds to wallow in self pity before he straightened up determinedly, opening his eyes as he did so.

The first thing he saw was his tormentors loudly guffawing and slapping each other high fives. He would have expected nothing less. 

He turned away from them, glad to find that the crowd was now beginning to disperse and it was possible for him to walk away. So he did just that, slipping into the crowd and speed-walking to his locker where he could grab his change of clothes.

“That’s right, fly away, fairy!” He heard someone call from behind him. He paid it no mind, focusing on his goal.

He arrived at his locker, opening it quickly, dumping everything in there and pulling out the clothes he needed. He trotted towards the nearest bathroom. There was no way he’d be in time for Glee, so he could only hope the other members didn’t question him too much about the incident.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam sat in a random spot in the back row, waiting for Glee to start. He still didn’t have that many friends or people to talk to, so he was mostly sticking to himself at the moment, focusing on bettering himself by doing things that would boost his popularity.

He straightened up as Mr. Schuester entered the room. Finn had told him that being in Glee was a real popularity booster, but he knew that the next few weeks would be the real test drive. He went over the song he’d prepared in his head, just in case he was called upon to perform at any point today. He was determined to fit in in Glee as well as everywhere he went.

“Where’s Kurt?” Mr. Schuester asked as he approached the group of students. Sam looked around momentarily before realizing that Mr. Schuester was right, Kurt hadn’t entered the room. He knew he’d been at school, he vaguely remembered seeing him in class a few times as well as in the hallways.

“He was here at lunch, he might’ve gone home between then and now,” Mercedes said questioningly, looking around at everyone else for confirmation. 

“But I saw him in the hallway after last period,” Quinn said.

“Maybe Kurt’s just running late, we can give him a few minutes but then we’ll need to get started on our setlist for regionals, we can’t afford to put it off,” Mr. Schuester decided, taking a seat on the stool in front of the group.

Sam sat back in his seat as students began to chatter around him. He didn’t know whether to be worried or to assume that everything was probably fine. A mild inconvenience to Kurt wouldn’t affect him, after all. So he stayed in a perpetual loop between the two emotions, just waiting. 

Around five minutes had passed and there was still no Kurt. Mr. Schuester stood up, clapping his hands together once. 

“We can’t afford to wait any longer. Kurt can join in if he comes in later but we need to start no-“

Mr. Schuester was cut off by the door opening quietly, as if the opener hoped the sound wouldn’t be noticed. Sam turned his gaze to where Kurt was now sheepishly entering the room.

“Hey guys... just got held up for a minute in the hallway..” Kurt said by way of explanation. Sam nodded, readily accepting this response. Everyone else seemed to accept it as well and Sam watched Kurt’s tense looking face sink into relief as he made his way over to his seat.

“You’re wearing different clothes,” Mercedes said suddenly, zeroing in on Kurt’s outfit.

Kurt froze, “Yeah, I was just going for a new loo-“

“And your hair is wet. You got slushied,” Mercedes said definitively, looking livid. Now Sam was confused. Slushied?

Kurt looked lost for a second before shrugging. 

“Ok yes, but I’m fine, I changed clothes, I got it out of my eyes, telling you guys wouldn’t have made any difference,” Kurt said defensively, sitting down next to Mercedes, looking like he’d rather be talking about anything else at all.

Sam thought he was getting an idea of the definition and he did not like what he was hearing.

“You need to be more careful, Kurt,” Mercedes said gently, her whole demeanor changing.

“I know, ‘Cedes, I wasn’t thinking, I’m sorry,” Kurt looked at her sadly.

“Don’t be sorry, just be safe,” she said, with the tone of a concerned parent. Kurt nodded seriously and the both of them slowly turned back around to face Mr. Schuester.

“Okay, well if that’s everything, we really do need to get a move on,” Mr. Schuester said excitably, rolling straight on past the slushie conversation apparently without a second thought.

Sam was shocked and appalled at how quickly that conversation was breezed over. Did nobody care that Kurt had to deal with this or that there were no consequences for the perpetrators? Did anyone even think about how terrible it was that this was the norm?

“What? Of course that’s not everything!” Sam exclaimed, practically leaping up out of his seat. He looked around incredulously at the other students before turning his glare on Mr. Schuester, “Kurt got a slushie dumped on him! You’re a teacher! What’re you going to do about it?”

Mr. Schuester looked uncomfortable, clearly fumbling for an excuse. Well whatever he came up with, Sam knew it wouldn’t be enough. He was a teacher and in Sams book that meant he had no excuse for standing aside when there was clearly bullying and harassment going on before his eyes.

“You know what, don’t bother answering that. If I respected you before this I certainly don’t respect you anymore,” he snapped. He debated sitting down and fuming through the rest of Glee, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at Mr. Schuester’s idiotic, obliviously bewildered face for a second longer. He shot the teacher one more glare before storming out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kurt sat stunned, a million thoughts racing through his head. He heard murmuring around him, but he couldn’t focus on anything. Did Sam really care so much about what happened to him? Or was he just unfamiliar with the concept of bullying in general? Didn’t he know it was just the way things were? Kurt was at the bottom of the pecking order, this was natural, not something to get worked up about.

Slowly coming back to himself, Kurt stood up, gesturing towards the door awkwardly.

“I’m just gonna..” he trailed off and just left the room in search of Sam, rolling his eyes at Mr. Schue’s confused voice as the door closed behind him.

Kurt spotted Sam the second he left the room, leaning up against a locker and glaring down at his feet. 

“Storm-outs are usually Rachel’s thing,” Kurt commented faux casually as he approached. Sam looked up sharply, but his gaze softened fairly quickly when he saw Kurt. 

Sam laughed lightly and shook his head, looking back down at the ground, “Do they seriously never do anything about this?” He didn’t elaborate but it was obvious what he was talking about.

“What could they do? I’m at the bottom of the food chain. I’m the only out kid at school and their minds are made up,” Kurt looked at Sam imploringly, trying to get him to understand.

“They need to change their minds, then!” Sam said insistently. Clearly he wasn’t going to change his mind either.

“It’s not as simple as all that,” Kurt tried to explain it to him gently.

“It doesn’t matter how simple or complicated it is, it needs to be done,” Sam said defiantly. Kurt shook his head at him, at a loss.

“Suppose I tried to stop it. What would I do, where would I start?” Kurt asked.

“We. I’ll help you,” Sam said, looking slightly less upset now that Kurt was more or less on board with discussing the issue.

The sentiment was nice, but Kurt still didn’t see any way for Sam to make his ideas reality. Especially when trying would inevitably do nothing but damage his own reputation.

“You said you’re the only out kid, well that’s the first thing we can change,” Sam stood up straighter, apparently getting more into this now. 

“How?” Kurt narrowed his eyes at him.

“Well..” Sam thought for a second before practically jumping up in excitement, “We can pretend to date! People will see me as gay and then we can look for any closeted people and talk to them about coming out. Especially popular ones!”

“No. Absolutely not,” Kurt knew for a fact that if Sam went through with his insane plan, his social life would be irreparably ruined. He’d be slushied and thrown in dumpsters and made fun of and he wasn’t even actually gay!

“Why not?” Sam asked, drooping down and immediately taking on the look of a kicked puppy. 

“I’m not letting you ruin your life for me,” Kurt said evenly. Sam had to see that this wouldn’t work.

“I’m not. If it seems like there’s nothing we can do I can always say I lost a bet or something,” he said hopefully. Kurt thought about it for a second. There was a small chance that might be believed although it wasn’t something Sam would live down. Maybe it was Kurt being selfish, but a part of him wanted to give this a shot.

“It’s your funeral. But we can’t just suddenly say we’re dating, no one will believe it. We’ll have to start spending more time together, being more affectionate,” Kurt explained, not looking at Sam. Suddenly the wind was knocked out of him as Sam tackled him in a hug. He froze, thoughts of his clothing being ruined rushing through his mind. With effort, he pushed those thoughts aside, returning the hug gingerly, seeing Sam’s smile out of the corner of his eye.

“I won’t let you down, Kurt,” he said solemnly.

“Okay,” Kurt began, not knowing how to respond to that. After a minute, he added, “we’d better go back inside.”

Sam detached himself and nodded. Kurt didn’t know whether to be relieved or to miss the feeling. He wasn’t hugged very often after all. Either way he shook off the feeling and reached for the door handle.


	2. Chapter 2

Kurt sat anxiously in his chair, tapping his foot to expel some of his worried energy. All of Glee had decided to meet up after school at Sugar & Spice, a café not too far from the school. Mercedes was to his left and his bag was sitting in the empty chair to his right. He and Sam had planned to sit next to each other, so he had to make sure no one else took the seat before Sam arrived. This all would have been so much easier if Sam could have been on time. All this waiting was giving him time to think about their whole “flirting” idea. Time to think was never a good thing because time to think translated to time to doubt and worry. He and Sam had planned to pretend to flirt at the café today, to make their relationship more believable.

At long last, (it had only been a few minutes at the most but it had felt much longer to Kurt), Sam arrived. As soon as Kurt saw him, he swept his bag off the chair beside him, Mercedes giving him an odd look from his left. Ignoring it, he waved Sam over, who spotted them and began making his way to the table.

Kurt watched as Sam greeted Finn and the others he knew from football, but ultimately sat down next to Kurt. He greeted Sam excitably, knowing it would make Mercedes suspicious considering he was known for being enthusiastic with his crushes. When he thought he’d sold it enough he dialed it back and Sam responded with a fond smile.

Kurt took a breath before returning the smile. He turned back towards the middle of the table, catching Mercedes’ watchful eye momentarily as he did. He tuned into the conversation for the first time. Rachel was regaling Finn with her latest plan to get to Broadway while the rest of the table was discussed Coach Sylvester’s latest attempt to dismantle the Glee club.

Kurt snapped his attention back to Sam, hear involuntarily skipping a beat when he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

“What’s Coach Sylvester’s problem with the Glee club anyway?” Sam asked, doing that same puppy dog smile he always seemed to do.

Kurt sat up straighter, launching into an explanation of Coach Sylvester’s villainy, how she’d wanted the money for her budget and proceeded to try and tear them down at any cost. He filled Sam in on some of her previous attempts, watching him laugh and grinning in return.

Soon the conversation changed route from Kurt’s dad to Sams family to Sam adamantly explaining to a bemused Kurt why Marvel was so much better than DC. Soon Kurt forgot to act flirty and just got caught up in conversation and in Sam’s presence.

Kurt only snapped back to reality when Mercedes dropped a hand onto his shoulder from behind him, gesturing to the rest of the group, who were all standing up and getting ready to leave. Surprised, Kurt looked to Sam who seemed equally as surprised. Kurt shrugged and went to stand up.

“Wait,” Sam said, reaching into his bag for something. Kurt froze, looking down at Sam expectantly. Sam pulled out a pen and scribbled something onto a napkin. Looking convincingly nervous, he passed the note up to Kurt, who grabbed it and looked at it. He smiled widely, tucking the note into his pocket as Sam stood up next to him.

Mercedes gawked from where she stood near Kurt. 

“Coming ‘Cedes?” Kurt asked, trying to look at her with a huge smile on his face.

“Uh, yeah, coming,” she replied. All three of them started heading towards the exit behind the rest of the group. Sam stepped ahead of Kurt and grabbed the door to hold it open for him and Mercedes and Kurt walked through it, thanking him and heading for his car.

“I’ll call you,” he called, raising a hand to wave at Sam. Sam waved a hand in return, smiling at Kurt.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kurt flopped onto his bed when he arrived home, plugging Sams number into his phone so he wouldn’t forget. He sent a quick hello text so Sam it wouldn’t look suspicious that Sam didn’t have his number.

Barely two minutes later his phone started ringing, displayed Mercedes’ contact. She must have called as soon as she got home.

“Hello?” Kurt said as he picked up the phone.

“Boy, have got some explaining to do,” Mercedes said immediately. Kurt smiled a little to himself, knowing the plan was going exactly how it was meant to.

“What do you mean?” He asked innocently.

“What do I mean? Sam! You like him don’t you?” Kurt debated saying he didn’t, acting like it was his big secret. But thinking on it more, he decided it was more like him to be open and excited about his crushes. He let the tension build for a couple more seconds before replying joyfully.

“Yes! Was it that obvious? Do you think he likes me?” Kurt babbled a bit.

“Obvious? Kurt, you didn’t take your eyes of him. Honey I love you, but don’t make this another Finn situation,” Mercedes instructed, sounding like a strict parent.

“It won’t be. He gave me his number,” Kurt was acting, but that didn’t mean what Mercedes said didn’t hurt him. Did she think he couldn’t learn from his mistakes?

“It could’ve been a friendly thing after a nice conversation. I mean, do you even know if he’s gay?” She asked, insisting on remaining negative.

“Jeez, ‘Cedes, way to crush a guy,” Kurt said, genuinely annoyed. He heard a sigh through the phone before she responded.

“Look, I’m sorry. I just want you to be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt,” she sounded like she was pleading with him. Kurt decided to have mercy on her, though he didn’t want to stay on the phone any longer.

“I know, it’s fine. Look, I’ll talk to you later, my dads calling me.”

After a few more necessary goodbyes, Kurt tossed his phone onto the mattress, flopping down himself after it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sam was sprawled across his avatar bedsheets trying to decide whether to do his homework or put it off longer. Suddenly he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket and pulled it out to see it was Finn calling him. Well that made his mind up about the homework, he thought, accepting the call.

“Finn, hi,” Sam said brightly, rolling over onto his stomach to hold the phone better.

“Hey, Sam. So I noticed- Well, Rachel noticed and then she told me- that you’ve been really friendly towards Kurt lately,” Finn stated. Sam smiled to himself a little. He hadn’t thought they’d done enough for it to be on Finn’s mind.

“Yeah, I mean, why wouldn’t I? He’s great! Well, you know that, you’re his brother. Yeah, anyway,” Sam trailed off awkwardly, not having planned that sentence very well.

“Mhm,” Finn said simply, leaving a few tense seconds silent before adding on, “Rachel thinks your friendship is a little out of the ordinary. The way you protected him, flirted gave him your phone number.”

“Oh,” Sam said awkwardly, not agreeing or disagreeing. He recalled protected him and giving him his phone number, but they’d forgotten to flirt at the café. Why did Rachel seem to think they’d flirted.

“For that to be true, you’d have to be gay,” Finn added.

“Yeah,” Sam agreed with the statement but didn’t confirm or deny whether he was actually gay.

“So you are gay?” Finn asked.

“I mean, I didn’t say that,” Sam said almost defensively.

“Then you’re not?” Why was Finn so determined to get to the bottom of this? Sam didn’t respond to that for a long while. Telling everyone he was gay had been part of the deal, it couldn’t be something he shied away from. The whole point was to try and change the norm with Kurt.

“I guess I am,” Sam admitted.

“And you’re interested in Kurt?” Finn continued with his line of questioning, moving right past the gay part without skipping a beat. Sam was almost surprised until he remembered that Kurt was his brother and this was Finn, he wouldn’t be homophobic. 

“Yeah,” He said simply, not bothering to go around it this time.

“Then I need to tell you that I know Kurt. I know who he is and if you’re serious about this, being with Kurt, then you’d better be serious about coming out. He doesn’t like to hide, and he won’t like hiding you for very long. He’d never come right out and tell you, but if you stay in the closet it’ll make him miserable,” Finn explained in one big rush. This hadn’t been the conversation Sam had been expecting, but it was much better than the hurt him and you die speech.

“I know, I thought about that. Kurt’s worth it,” Sam said sincerely.

“So you are gonna come out?” Finn asked just to be sure.

“Yeah,” Sam confirmed.

“Good. And by the way, if you hurt him, I WILL be on my brothers side and you will NOT like what happens,” Finn said threateningly.

“Yep got it,” Sam agreed quickly, voice a little higher, nervous despite himself.

“Great,” said Finn, friendly again suddenly, “I’ll see you at practice then.” Finn then hung up the phone. Sam dropped his own phone and laid back against his pillows.

“Well alright then,” he mumbled to himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed and comments are always appreciated.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey lovelies! I know it’s been a really long time and I’m really sorry. Life and mental states just got in the way, but this will get finished, don’t you worry! I hope you enjoy this chapter and don’t forget I love you all!

Sam jogged down the hallway, trying to strike a balance between speed walking and full tilt running. He wasn’t late for glee club, not yet anyways, but it was going to be a close call after having to stay after school late with the French teacher to retake a test he had done poorly on.

Hearing voices ahead of him in the hall, he slowed to a walk, trying to appear casual. But he quickly changed back to a run once he identified who the voices belonged to.

“Is your sense of humor truly so unrefined that repeating the same action over and over amuses you every time?” Kurt said confidently, almost casually, facing up to the much larger Karofsky. The much larger Karofsky who was currently holding up a slushie. 

Karofsky looked like he didn’t know how to reply to that and Sam felt a surge of pride for Kurt. 

Not willing to waste any more time, Sam stepped into view, not saying anything yet, but making sure his presence was known. 

“Evans!” Karofsky exclaimed, looking relieved to have backup, despite the fact that his opponent was half his size, “Care to do the honors?”

“I don’t see any honor in humiliating someone physically weaker than you,” Sam said, careful to stress the word physically. There was no other aspect aside from physical in which Kurt was weaker than Karofsky. Sam looked at the slushie in distaste, not moving to take it from him.

“So you need me to spell it out for you. Okay, Evans, I can do that. You see, in this school there’s a certain way of doing things we have. And according to that certain way, there IS honor in slushie-ing a worthless little fag like Hummel here,” Karofsky held the slushie out insistently towards Sam. 

Slowly, Sam reached up and wrapped a hand around the slushie cup. He watched Kurt’s expression go from disbelief to hurt to resignation and he tried to ignore the pain that caused him as he turned back to Karofsky, who just looked triumphant.

“Kurt is not worthless. Kurt is worth a million of you, Karofsky,” Sam said defiantly. He raised the slushie up, only intending to make a quip about the choice of beverage before tossing it into the nearby trash. But apparently Karofsky perceived the gesture as something much more threatening because the next thing Sam knew, he had cold slushie dripping off his face, down his shirt and pants, and especially painfully, into his eyes. 

When he finally managed to wipe the corn syrup out of his eyes enough to force them open, Karofsky was gone and Kurt was staring at him in shock. 

“Hey, Kurt,” he managed weakly.

“Oh my god,” Kurt said quietly, still shocked. Sam nodded his head as if to agree before licking some of the slush off his lips.

“Mm, cherry,” he said nervously, trying desperately to gauge Kurts emotions.

“Oh my god!” Kurt said, louder. Yep, he was definitely upset.

“Sorry,” Sam said, smiling sheepishly.

“Why would you- you shouldn’t have... never mind,” Kurt trailed off with a sigh. He picked his bag up off of where it was resting on the ground and dragged Sam after him towards the restroom. Sam just followed obediently behind him.

Once they arrived in the bathroom, Kurt started wordlessly rummaging through his bag. Sam watched curiously, but didn’t dare ask Kurt any questions while he was in this tense state of mind. Eventually Kurt pulled out a sweatshirt and handed it to Sam.

“Most of my clothes would be too small for you, but I’ll bet this sweatshirt will be fine. I’m sorry I don’t have any pants for you to change into, but like I said. Too small,” Kurt held it out and Sam took it gratefully, giving it a quick glance. It was just a plain purple hoodie yet Sam could practically feel the style and the Kurt radiating from it.

“Thank you,” Sam smiled at Kurt and started to turn around for a stall when Kurt grabbed his sleeve hurriedly.

“Not so fast,” Kurt insisted, “you can put the hoodie on when there’s no more slushie on you.”

And that’s how Sam found himself sitting on the bathroom floor with a purple hoodie in his lap as Kurt used sink water to wash slushie out of his hair. If this wasn’t a surreal moment, he didn’t know what was.

“Thank you,” Kurt said quietly, about a minute or so into the washing.

“‘Course, Kurt,” Sam replied sincerely. Kurt didn’t say anything else and soon enough finished washing Sams hair. 

Once he had, Sam stood up, smiled at Kurt again, and brought the hoodie into the stall with him to replace his shirt. He placed his wet shirt into a plastic bag that had also been given to him by Kurt, placing that inside his backpack. His pants were a little stained but his shirt had gotten the worst of it, so he supposed they would be alright to wear just to glee club. Quickly, he slipped on the hoodie and stepped out to meet Kurt.

Kurt was on his phone when Sam opened the door but looked up as soon as he stepped out. He gave Sam a once over and then a twice over and then a thrice over before he collected himself and just nodded, seemingly in begrudging approval, before breezing out the door in a rather flustered manner. Sam frankly didn’t know what to make of this, so he just followed him bewilderedly into the hallway. 

Evidently Kurt was making his way to glee club, so Sam trotted until he’d caught up and then fell into stride with Kurt, walking the few steps it took to get there together.

Once they arrived, Sam instinctively held the door open for Kurt, realizing at the last second how that would make it look. Especially with the two of them coming in late together. Well, nothing for it now, he thought, following Kurt into the room, hesitant smile on his face. The general facial expression consensus in the room seemed to be different forms of questioning expressions and eyebrow raises. Well, alright then.

~~~~~

They stood awkwardly at the front of the group, unsure whether to take their seats or not. 

“Sorry we’re late,” Sam offered awkwardly from beside him. Kurt could practically feel the anxiety coming off of Sam in waves and he put a comforting hand on his arm. Before immediately taking it away again after remembering that yeah, they were in front of a group of people still.

There was an ensuing awkward silence where everyone took in the scene, made their quiet assumptions, and tried to think of something to say. Eventually it was Puck that broke the silence, really to nobody’s surprise. 

“I always figured Kurt would be the one wearing Evans’ hoodies,” he commented aloud, to no one in particular. Kurt opened his mouth and then promptly closed it, having honestly nothing to say to that. 

“Kurt wouldn’t be caught dead in my raggedy old clothes,” Sam chuckled, everyone else taking the opportunity to laugh along, dispelling much of the tension in the room.

After another second, Sam grabbed Kurt’s arm and pulled him to their seats. Kurt let it happen easily, taking the seat next to Sam without complaint. He knew Mercedes would expect an explanation later. And he would give her one. But for now he was going to utilize the excuse to not talk that came with being in a club.

Kurt mostly just existed for the rest of the meeting, zoning in and out as potential song choices with varying solo opportunities for Rachel and Finn were presented for regionals, tending to all be different variations of Journey songs. So basically the norm. 

He glanced up at Sam out of the corner of his eye a few times, almost always making eye contact. After a few minutes, as Mr. Schue was shooting down Puck’s suggestion of Fat Bottom Girls, which had been supported by a surprisingly large percentage of the group, Kurt felt Sams fingers hesitantly lacing around his own. Heart racing, he closed his hand around Sams in response, glancing at him to see the big happy puppy smile he was barely even trying to hide.

And a few minutes after that, as Rachel was insisting on the importance of a strong female lead, Kurt leaned into Sams side, resting his head on the side of his shoulder. He couldn’t see Sams face, but he just knew that happy smile was still there. And so he let a small smile of his own slip onto his face.

He could feel Mercedes eyes on him, he could practically sense the intensity of her expression without even seeing it. He knew this was what they were aiming for, to get people to see them as having romantic feelings for each other, but somehow it felt like Mercedes was intruding on a private moment. Kurt wished she would look away.

Eventually she did and Kurt was able to spend the rest of the time in peace, just ignoring all the semi important information that he was definitely going to need to know in the future. Well, maybe Sam was paying attention enough to fill him in later.

Kurt craned his neck upward to check. The motion caused him to directly meet Sams eyes, since Sam had been already looking down at him. Sam blushed slightly, having been unexpectedly caught out. Well he definitely wasn’t getting his information from Sam. Oh well.

What seemed like a very short amount of time later, Mr. Schue was wrapping up the discussion and dismissing the glee club members. Kurt didn’t move immediately, stretching out his legs without moving his upper half off of Sam. Everyone else seemed to be getting up to go, but Sam wasn’t complaining, so that was at least good.

Just as Kurt was considering getting up, he felt someone grab him by both arms and yank him unceremoniously to his feet. Turning around slightly unsteadily, he saw exactly who he’d expected. Mercedes.

He glanced down at Sam, who just looked indignant, despite the fact that he wasn’t the one who was grabbed. Kurt rolled his eyes slightly and looked back over at Mercedes. 

“You’re coming over today, girl, we have some things to talk about,” Mercedes said in a tone that managed to be loving, intimidating, and insistent all at once.

“Fine,” he agreed, having learned long ago that resistance is futile, “I’ll call you,” he managed to get out to Sam before Mercedes dragged him away.

Sam smiled back, but it was clear he was nervous. Probably because of Mercedes. Mercedes and her damn pushiness.

~~~~~

Sam was sprawled across his bed like a starfish, flipping through different sci fi movies on Netflix, seeing if anything he hadn’t yet seen would catch his eye. So far, nothing was. He was thinking about just popping in Avatar again when he phone starting ringing. Seeing it was Kurt, he accepting the call immediately.

“Kurt, hi!” He said into the phone, smiling from ear to ear despite the fact that nobody could see it. 

“Hi, Sam! You’re not busy are you?” Kurt asked, seeming concerned that he might be interrupting something. If anyone should be worried about interrupting something, Sam thought it should be him, considering he’d thought Kurt was supposed to be hanging out with Mercedes right now.

“Oh no, I was just thinking of putting on a movie but not really,” Sam said reassuringly, “I thought you were with Mercedes?”

“Oh I am, but she started getting really pushy so I decided to just call you,” Kurt explained. 

Sam heard a distinctly offended “hey!” From Mercedes in the background.

“She wants to know if we’re dating and I keep telling her I’m not ready to have that conversation, so I was hoping she might listen to you,” Kurt said desperately. And he must have been desperate if he thought Mercedes was going to listen to him of all people.

“Alright, you can put her on,” Sam said agreeably. 

“Thanks,” Kurt breathed, and the next thing he knew Sam was on the phone with Mercedes.

“So what’s the relationship status?” She said in a light gossipy tone, “Maybe you’ll tell me since lover boy over here’s being so unreasonable.”

“I really don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to not want to put a label on something we haven’t really discussed yet, especially without even telling me first,” Sam said a little defensively.

Mercedes’ tone sobered up a little once she realized Sam wasn’t joking along with her, that he was being serious.

“I’m sorry, I really just care about Kurt, you know? I didn’t want him to be hurt,” And Sam could relate to that, so he sympathized with Mercedes a bit on this point.

“I don’t want him to be hurt either, Mercedes,” Sam assured her sincerely.

“And I wanted it to be fair on you too. I didn’t want it to be another Finn situation,” Mercedes continued on talking as if Sam hadn’t spoken.

“You know, I really don’t know much about this Finn situation and I have a feeling I don’t want to ask. But I also get the feeling that Kurt can be trusted to learn from his mistakes and not make the same one twice, don’t you?” Sam said reasonably.

“I know you’re right, but.. just be careful, Sam,” Mercedes insisted, “Kurt’s proven himself to be a bit-“

“Mercedes, stop. I trust, Kurt, okay?” Sam insisted. There was a pause as Mercedes seemed to contemplate this.

“Okay. You really care about him, huh?” Mercedes asked quietly.

“I do,” Sam responded simply, honestly.

“But you’re not dating him,” Mercedes said as an uncertain statement, unsure if she was allowed to ask this question.

“I don’t want to ask him until I come out. I want it to be.. special,” Sam admitted. If he didn’t think too much he could almost convince himself this was all real. He sort of wished it were.

“Okay,” Mercedes said, sounding touched and a little ashamed.

“I’m sorry for acting the way I did, Sam,” she said quietly, sincerely.

“I know, ‘Cedes. But don’t apologize to me. It’s Kurt who’s hurt, who thinks you don’t trust him,” Sam suggested.

“I will,” Mercedes said firmly. Sam smiled to himself, glad he was able to help them this one little bit.

Mercedes hung up without a goodbye and without offering to let Kurt say goodbye, but Sam couldn’t bring himself to be upset over it. He knew they were probably having a moment and Mercedes was probably fixing things with Kurt as he spoke.

Sam flopped back down onto his bed and selected a random movie on Netflix, comforting himself with the knowledge that Kurt’s happiness and continued healthy friendship with Mercedes was worth more than his selfish desire to hear his voice one more time before he hung up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey lovelies please drop a comment to let me know if I did good or if I did bad because validation and critiques both keep me going equally as much! Thank you so much for reading and have an amazing day/night and an amazing life!


End file.
